Mr. Glasgow may be conservative, but there is another factor in play. Chinese electronics companies, which drove down the price of DVD players to the point that they were almost disposable, are not being sold licenses to manufacture the Blu-ray players.

Bruce Tripido, associate vice president for marketing at Sharp’s entertainment division, said, “If this time around — and hopefully we’ve all learned something from the first time around — the technology consortium that owns the technology makes a conscious decision to protect it, and ensures that any company that’s going to manufacture takes a license and protects royalties, then I think the price compression should happen at a reasonable rate.”

So the consortium is going to block Chinese companies from selling us $99 Blu-Ray players directly? But I'm sure Sharp, Sony and anyone else in the consortium will manufacture in China, Malaysia, Taiwan or anywhere else that will give them the lowest cost / best profit. They just won't pass the savings onto the consumer.

Do they really think mass adaptation will happen with price fixing? When the avarage consumer can buy a $59 up-converting DVD player and $10 DVD, will they run out to purchase a $400 player and $40 Blu-Ray disc? Maybe the videophiles will, but not the average consumer, and that's who you need to make this format catch on.

This is the third or fourth story I've read about the high and rising prices of Blu-Ray. And I'm not even looking for them. Everything from NetFlix saying rental prices may rise to Sony subsidising the cost of disc pressing to compete with HD DVD.

The second they think the have the upper hand on competition and "piracy", out comes the unabashed greed.